The Poltergeist Wife

Valerie Ludwig died in Nordstrom’s perfume section, killed by an allergic reaction to a perfume-sample mist. It was approximately noon. The name of the perfume was La Vida.

A few weeks later, Victor Ludwig (Valerie’s widower) decorated the Christmas tree by himself, sliding one wooly sock after another onto the branches and trying to avoid thoughts of his wife’s last moments— her throat constricting, her face turning purple. It was difficult not to think about the details of her death since the physician who looked after Valerie when she was rushed to hospital, and who was behind in his Sensitivity Training, had unleashed all of them on Victor as soon as he’d gotten there. The gruel truth that Valerie’s last moments had been painful and terrifying was forever burned into Victor’s brain.

Screw you, Dr. Green, Victor thought, throwing back his eggnog. He hoped the doctor was confined to the hospital tonight, celebrating Christmas Eve elbow-deep up some guy’s—

Victor…, he heard in Valerie’s gentle disapproving voice. He did his best to redirect his thoughts from revenge on Dr. Green back to decorating the tree. Valerie would’ve wanted him to decorate their tree.

He was draping and sticking long, Christmas-patterned socks all over it, the way Valerie had liked it; the way her family had always decorated their tree while Valeria was growing up; and the way she and Victor had decorated theirs since they’d gotten married. They’d only had two years to practice the tradition together.

At this thought, the taste of Victor’s eggnog seemed to sour. He set it down, walked away from the box of socks, and strode back and forth, purposelessly, through their house. With his long limbs and strides, he resembled a spider. A depressed spider.

Later, he resembled a spider again, as he huddled in the corner of the shower, questioning how his life had come to this. The water had long turned cold. He didn’t notice.

“Why?” Victor asked the drain.

“I dunno,” the drain replied.

Sighing, Victor stepped out of the shower and dried off. He’d forgotten to bring his pajamas into the bathroom with him, like he always did; like Valerie had always made fun of him for doing, and then she’d stash his pajamas somewhere in the house so that he had to walk around in his bathrobe and look for them.

Finding his pajamas right where they were supposed to be, Victor’s throat constricted. His eyes started to water.

The hair-catcher, he remembered. He’d forgotten to empty the hair-catcher. He wiped his eyes and walked back into the bathroom, grateful for something else to think about.

He walked into the bathroom… and then stopped: something brown and limp was lying in the middle of the tile floor. He frowned, picked it up, and realized that it was the hair from the shower… He also realized that there were several Valerie hairs in it. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it: Victor pulled the hairball closer to his face in order to stare at the few remnants of—

“Ew, Victor!”

Victor screamed, dropping the hairball on the floor. He instinctively pulled his robe tighter around himself. “Who’s there?!” he commanded.

“Don’t you recognize my voice?” the voice replied.

Victor looked all around, his eyes wide. “You—… you sound like Valerie, but—,”

“I AM!” Valerie shouted, and when she did, the light fixture over their Jack-and-Jill sinks fell onto the counter and shattered.

“Holy cow!” the voice exclaimed. “Did I do that?”

Victor began to tremble. “I’ve lost it,” he murmured.

“You haven’t lost it—,” the voice started to say; and then there was a sudden rush of wind, and an unseen force plowed into Victor and knocked him on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” Valerie groaned. “I can’t seem to control this body.” Her whispery voice then hardened from frustration. “I don’t know how to move around. Every time I try to move or to touch something, it’s like I’m ten times too strong for it.”

Victor said nothing. His eyes were still flitting around the bathroom and he was wondering whether he should just admit himself to a psychiatric ward. A moment passed, during which the only sounds were the obnoxiously loud exhaust fan and a jar of soap flying back and forth in the shower as Valerie practiced moving things. Victor tried to see her, but he could only see what she touched. Valerie seemed to have no physical form— she was an ethereal presence, an atmospheric overlap of sound and energy.

Victor opened his mouth several times, wanting to say so many things— ask whether she’d seen life after death, ask Valerie why she’d said ‘yes’ to sampling a perfume when she knew she was allergic to them (although Victor knew the answer to that one— Valerie would’ve been too afraid to hurt the saleswoman’s feelings)— but what came out of his mouth instead was:

“I’ve missed you so much.”

There was another rush of wind, and then Victor felt a hard slap across his face.

“Oh no!” Valerie cried. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that, I swear!”

“Ahhh-ha,” Victor replied, holding his cheek. It was turning red and starting to sting.

“I’m so sorry, I just tried to put my hand on your cheek!”

“Next time, try to be even softer,” Victor said, chuckling. He turned his hand over to touch the colder side of it to his stinging face. “Ouch.”

Valerie began to whimper.

“Hey,” Victor cooed, “It’s okay, honey. You’ll figure out how to control it. We’ll practice together. Maybe—… maybe just with something soft first.” He nodded at the closet. “Try handing me a towel.”

Valerie sniffled; and then the accordion-style closet door began to shudder. It shook for a few seconds, and then flew off its hinges. A tiny sob filled the air.

“It’s okay, Val,” Victor laughed, unable to help himself. He picked up the closet door and set it against the wall. “I’ll fix that later. Just try again. Even gentler.”

Valerie sniffed again, and then one of the yellow towels lifted off the stack and unsteadily floated toward Victor. (Victor smiled, thinking of how Val, while on laughing gas from the dentist, had asked Victor to buy yellow towels for the new house, insisting that yellow dries better than any other color.) The towel veered suddenly into the shower at the end and knocked over all the shampoo bottles, but Valerie had come closer then than with any of her other tries.

“That was so good, honey,” Victor said. Valerie gave him a loving expression that he couldn’t see but he could feel.

They practiced with a few more items around the bathroom until Valerie said she was tired. Victor could also hear it in her voice— all the physical movement had drained what energy she had, which was probably little to begin with. And for all the indescribable joy of sort of having his wife back, Victor was also exhausted by all the sudden newness. He fell asleep as Valerie quietly described the last dream she’d had before dying: of riding an old-fashioned toboggan down a huge, snow-covered hill, with Victor sitting behind her, holding her safe and secure on top of the rickety wooden sled. When Victor drifted off to sleep, Valerie wanted to stroke his hair as she’d done before; but she refrained, knowing that she could give him a black eye or something.

Valerie didn’t remember exactly how she had passed from the land of the dead back into the land of the living. She only recalled floating across the two atmospheres, like the passenger of a one-person boat. She hadn’t put in any effort; instead, some unseen force had propelled her back into her old life— just without her body.

While traveling across the dark waters, Valerie had had one thought: I miss my Victor.

She couldn’t stay here, in his world. She knew that. She didn’t know how she knew that; she just knew. And she hadn’t mentioned it to Victor. She couldn’t crush him again. She wouldn’t. She would visit him like this, like tonight, whenever she could. It would be hard on them both when she had to leave each time (and she wasn’t even sure how many times she could come back), but even a little time together had to be better than none. Right?

Valerie lay beside Victor and listened to his breathing. She was a weightless, un-embodied cluster of atoms, suspended between mortality and a walking daydream; but Victor was flesh and bone. Organs. Valerie lay awake, hearing Victor’s heartbeat as if her head were laying on his chest. She didn’t know that Victor was dreaming about her.

‘Don’t drink all the eggnog,’ Dream Valerie cautioned him. ‘I don't want you throwing up on Christmas.’

Just like he had that day, Dream Victor replied, ’But throwing up on any other day is fine.’

‘Right,’ Valerie laughed. Behind her, a Nordstrom bag lay on the counter. Victor eyed it. Why did it make him feel nervous?

‘Hey, you should keep the dress,” he said.

‘Nah,’ Valerie shrugged, putting the eggnog back into the fridge before he could drink any more. ‘It just doesn’t fit me quite right.’ She sat down and started lacing her boots.

As he watched her tie her shoes, Victor’s unconscious mind prickled with recognition. The neurons fired in all the right places in his brain, and he remembered what day it was and what memory he was reliving: this was the day he’d let her go— the day he’d lost her.

‘Don’t go to the mall!’ Dream Victor shouted. He kneeled in front of her and covered her laces so that she couldn’t tie them.

Valerie’s eyes widened. ‘Why not?’ she asked.

And Victor, staring into her eyes, slowly began to remember that this was a dream. This wasn’t real life. This wasn’t his Valerie. She was merely a shade of the Valerie he’d loved. The real one had died; and he’d allowed it to happen.

But after a moment of thought, Victor realized that he didn’t care if this was a dream. He didn’t care that she wasn’t really Valerie. He just wanted time.

‘Don’t go to the mall,’ he shrugged, trying to erase the stress from his face. ‘It’s two weeks before Christmas. It’ll be packed, there’ll be no parking. Besides, the dress looks beautiful on you.’ Suddenly, had to put his head down in order to hide the tears that had come to his eyes. He kept them hidden by looking down and taking off Valerie’s boots.

‘Okay,’ Valerie laughed, waiting for Victor to finish. When he did, she stood up— but first she kissed his forehead and said, ‘You should’ve told me you liked the dress.’

Victor, still kneeling at her feet, nodded and whispered, ‘I should’ve.’

Valerie started getting dinner ready, as she would have done that day if she hadn’t gone back to the mall; as she would have done for the rest of their lives together if Victor hadn’t let her leave. Victor hung the dress on Valerie’s side of the closet before she could change her mind again. Then he walked back into the kitchen, sat at one of the barstools, and just watched her. He watched her cook; he listened to her hum as she moved across the kitchen; he stared at her fingers as they drummed on the counter. He wanted to watch this forever. He wanted to never wake up. Being with her, even just being around her, filled him with a joy and an ache that he hadn’t known he could feel.

While Valerie’s ‘mystery soup’ stewed on the stove, the two of them put socks on the tree. Valerie made Victor play ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ four times, which he didn’t mind doing because it made her smile, made her dance. Bing Crosby came on, and Victor reached for Valerie’s hand and pulled her close. A big part of him was worried that because she was only a dream, she wouldn’t feel like Valerie— she wouldn’t feel real. But she did feel real. She felt solid. She fit perfectly in his arms, her head the perfect height to rest against his heartbeat. She was perfect. It was all perfect. He kissed the top of her head, breathed her in.

‘This is how it was supposed to be,’ he thought, swaying with her in his arms, seeing the white tree lights reflected in her hair: ‘This is how it was supposed to be.’

This was how it was supposed to be.

“That was how it was supposed to be,” Victor murmured in his sleep.

Valerie squinted at him, wishing she could see into his mind. Instead, she watched the steady rise and fall of his breathing. Behind her, outside their bedroom window, snow fell lazily onto the world. Valerie thought how she herself had fallen lazily back into Victor’s life, like a fragile, temporary, insignificant piece of frozen rain.

She started to reach for him, and then remembered that she couldn’t.